


an eulogy for a body still breathing

by killthefangirl



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, BAMF Peter Parker, Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kinda Dark, Other, Peter Parker Deserves Better, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter-centric, as in its talked about, not peters tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29518059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killthefangirl/pseuds/killthefangirl
Summary: Peter Parker is tired.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	an eulogy for a body still breathing

**Author's Note:**

> look this whole thing feels kinda disjointed and doesnt flow the way i want it to at all but im giving up at this point
> 
> no idea what the fuck posessed me when i wrote this but one second i was in front of a blank document and the next this was just there

Peter Parker is a teenager. He’s a genius kid with a loving aunt and two best friends who support him. He’s 16 and he knows Tony Stark and the Avengers. He’s been to the tower and he’s worked in Tony Starks private lab. He has a prestigious internship and dreams of universities.

Peter Parker is the friendly neighborhood spiderman.

He helps old ladies across the road and he takes cats down from trees. He webs up muggers and leaves them for the police to find.

He deals with the _small guys._

Peter Parker is tired.

Peter Parker is tired because he wakes up stifling screams and tasting blood, he’s tired because he goes to school and he sits in his place during lectures unable to force his brain to listen. He sits at the lunch table with his friends with an empty tray before him, eyes glued to his phone looking through lists of cases the police hasn’t bothered with while his friend talks about a new lego set he got. He’s tired because when his friend asks him if he wants to come over he easily slides an apologetic smile on his face and tells him he’s busy with whatever lie he comes up with that day. He’s tired because he goes home and he barely has time to do his homework before he’s sliding out of the window. He’s tired because he barely slips into bed before he’s awake again, forcing his body to move and go through the motions of masquerading as a functioning human being.

Peter parker is 16. He’s 16 and he knows how to stich up stab wounds and how to take out bullets out of his body with the least amount of bleeding. He’s 16 and he knows how people look after hitting the concrete from the 7th floor and what an apartment smells like when there’s a two days old overdosed body in it. He’s 16 and he knows how heavy a building is and what starved kids on the streets that don’t make it look like curled up under dumpsters.

He’s a genius kid but he still can’t figure out what to say when there’s someone barely older than him toeing the edge of a building, he doesn’t know how to make himself fast enough to catch them on the way down. He’s a kid but he swears to remember every single one of their faces instead of the names of revolutionaries from history. He’s a kid but he remembers the pressure points on a person and the smell of gunpowder better than he does the correct answers on his Spanish test.

He’s tired because Spiderman doesn’t sleep even though Peter Parker should. Tired because he knows how to cover up eyebags and bruises with make up, tired because the screams of the people he failed to save stick better than his webs, tired because he does all he can and he knows it’ll never be enough.

He’s tired of people telling him to rest, saying “you can’t save everyone” like its not just a picture frame over a hole in a wall, like he could look at a face in the newspaper and not think, _if I would’ve been faster, if I stayed out longer_. He knows he can’t help everyone but if he didn’t try the apartment of the girl he talked off the edge would be gaping empty, the kid he saved from the gunshot just another pretty grave swallowed by the earth. He can’t save everyone but he can _try_ and he’ll do his damn best if it kills him.

Peter Parker has dreams of universities but he doesn’t truly think he’ll make it that far.

He doesn’t know if he’ll die fighting someone or if his body is just going to collapse someday, but he knows he won’t regret it. He is doing what he chose to do and this is the path he has built himself. Whatever awaits him in the end, he knows his only regret is going to be not staying longer to save more lives.

Peter Parker is 16 and he’s a kid and he’s tired, but he’ll bear the weight of the world on his shoulders until he can’t anymore and he’ll be happy doing so.


End file.
